The UC Santa Cruz campus community is a safe and secure environment for your student to study and socialize. Safety and health are top priorities for the campus.

UC Santa Cruz has its own police and fire departments to protect and ensure the safety of the campus. UC Santa Cruz Police Department officers work closely with the ten residential colleges and surrounding law enforcement agencies to ensure that students are safe and protected by the laws that govern both the campus and the general population.

The Student Health Center provides quality health care to UC Santa Cruz students. All currently registered undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to use all of the services available at the Health Center, including office visits, in-house lab, and psychiatry. Registration fees cover a portion of the costs of Health Center services.

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offers a variety of counseling services, programs, and workshops that address students’ developmental, situational, and lifelong concerns.

CruzAlert is UC Santa Cruz's emergency notification system, which is intended to provide critical information rapidly to UCSC students, faculty, and staff during an emergency on campus. In the event of an emergency, CruzAlert delivers important messages to campus web sites via RSS feed, to cell phones via text messages, and to landline phones via voice messages.

Aside from quarterly testing, the system is only used during actual campus emergencies. Generally, CruzAlert messages will only be sent out if it is necessary for students, faculty, and staff to take some specific action to protect themselves, such as leaving/avoiding a certain area or taking other protective measures. Updates and all-clear messages may also be sent depending on the situation.